President Barack Obama's private meetings with congressional Republican leaders appeared to do very little to break the legislative impasse that largely has defined his tenure.

Descriptions of the meeting from both ends of Pennsylvania Ave. were clinical at best. Notably missing were usual Washington declarations that a high-level meeting was “productive” or “constructive.” Asked about that omission, an aide to Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., called the speaker’s time on Tuesday with Obama “cordial.”

With little public fanfare, President Barack Obama on Friday vetoed a Republican-crafted measure designed to repeal his signature health care overhaul. But Republican leaders are signaling their repeal push is far from over.

In a statement, Obama said the health care overhaul "is working," slamming the bill because it would "reverse the significant progress we have made in improving health care in America." "The Affordable Care Act includes a set of fairer rules and stronger consumer protections that have made health care coverage more affordable, more attainable, and more patient centered," Obama added.

Wednesday's House vote sets up a veto decision for Obama. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Congressional Republicans finally won a major battle in their fight against President Barack Obama’s health care law, but he is poised to win the war with the stroke of a pen.

The House on Wednesday, in a vote that fell strictly along party lines, for the first time sent Obama a measure that would repeal his 2010 Affordable Care Act. The outcome is a major victory for Republicans because it will allow them to tout it to anti-Obama GOP donors and voters.

During his year-end news conference, President Barack Obama took the kinds of partisan shots that for years have so frustrated congressional Republicans. But he also flashed the pragmatic streak that helped him notch several legislative victories in 2015.

On one hand, Obama praised Republicans for crafting several high-profile bills that met his muster. But on the other, he clubbed the GOP for bucking the rest of the world for its rejection of the very concept of climate change. The president and Capitol Hill Republicans have had a rocky relationship since even before he took office in January 2009, and the bad blood has made Washington a symbol of legislative dysfunction ever since. But the ill will seemed to dissipate a bit this year, as he signed into law sweeping bills on education, highways, the Export-Import Bank, and a massive spending bill that raises defense and domestic budget caps and also averts a government shutdown.

Shifting demographics and Republican turnout fueled another victorious election night for Republican candidates, the White House contends, not the president or his health care law.

The morning after a Republican won the Kentucky governor's race and a year after another GOP success in the midterms, reporters pushed Press Secretary Josh Earnest Wednesday on whether President Barack Obama is to blame for Republican gains in Congress and at the state level since he took office. Republicans also won races in Mississippi and Virginia, and GOP officials said those victories show the party has momentum headed into 2016.

McConnell says he'll try to repeal Obamacare again though he has acknowledged it won't become law. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

Republicans are touting — again — another doomed effort to repeal Obamacare while President Barack Obama remains president.

The latest pledge has been in the works for a while, using special budget rules to get a repeal — or a very large chunk of a repeal — through the Senate and onto the president's desk using a filibuster-proof reconciliation measure. The most obvious reason why such an effort is doomed is that Obama still wields a veto pen and will use it, and Republicans aren't close to having the 67 Senate votes and 290 House votes needed to ensure a veto override.

President Barack Obama has his work cut out for him if he's going to avoid House Republicans nixing part of the Affordable Care Act with a veto override.

The 2.3 percent tax on medical devices enacted as part of that law passed Thursday in the House 280-140, giving Republicans hope they'll have the votes for an override, which requires a two-thirds majority. That came with a dozen Republicans absent for the vote. Every Republican present and 46 Democrats voted to nuke the tax. A nonbinding vote to repeal the medical device tax passed the Senate with a veto-proof majority backed by 34 members of the Democratic caucus as part of the 2013 budget resolution vote-a-rama in the Senate, but never got anywhere with then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., putting the clamps down on the chamber.